AN: The crack, oh the crack, it has meeeee...
BUBBLES
Chapter Two: Purple Dancing Daleks
"So."
"Right! Hatha Seventeen, here we come!" The Doctor kicked a lever under the TARDIS console, his hands busy with the switches. He paused abruptly and looked up at her. "It's good to see you, by the way."
She folded her arms over the awful dress, her mouth quirking into a reluctant grin. "You too."
He nodded his head at her. "You're going to need a bit more than that. Hatha is a swamp planet… with extra swamp. It's the squelchiest place I've ever been. I mean, really muddy. Still, it might improve that dress. Certainly can't hurt it."
She blew a raspberry at him. "Blame my mother."
"Oh, I'm wiser than that," he grinned. "Thankfully I thought of everything. Over by the door, there."
An eyebrow shot up. "Wellington boots… and a snorkel."
He looked affronted. "It's a space snorkel!"
Martha restrained herself, with some effort. "Wellington boots and a space… right. Doctor. Where's my room nowadays? I think I left some jeans here…"
"No time," he said briskly. "We've arrived."
Martha pulled on the boots and picked up the snorkel reluctantly, whilst the Doctor fitted one to his own messy head. "This is absolutely surreal," she sighed. "I've overdosed on coffee, or something. Jack put Maldraffian trippers in the tea. I've hallucinated the whole day."
The Doctor peered at her through the plastic goggles. "Been there, done that," he commented. "Purple dancing daleks do not a good night's sleep make."
She stared at him. "Seriously?"
"Weeeell, it was after the whole Manhattan thing." He scratched at the hair sticking out at all angles from the snorkel straps. "They had feathers."
"Feathers," she said flatly.
He nodded sheepishly. "And sequins."
She groaned, her head hitting the wall of the TARDIS with a thunk. "I need a drink."
"Well, you're in luck there!" He pulled open the doors, dragging her to her feet. "Because what this planet has in abundance - is water."
Martha started after him as he squidged his way over what looked like a flat, open expanse of murky water interspersed with little hillocks of black-green algae. "Not that kind of drink," she growled, carefully gathering up the front of the fluffy monstrosity. "Is the whole planet like this?"
"Pretty much." He held out his hand as she clambered awkwardly over the slippery hummocks. "Gets deeper, of course, got to be careful of sinkholes… whoops!"
Martha had fallen face-first into the boggy goop. "Oh, that – is - gross," she gasped, spitting greenish-grey water and wiping it out of her eyes. "This is hopeless, Doctor, I can't walk in this thing!"
"Hmm, you have a point." He crouched down beside her. "Hold on."
"To what?"
"Ahh… another good point. Here we go." The Doctor grabbed the layers upon layers of the mud-slick skirt, and hauled back. The silk taffeta ripped with an unspeakably revolting, squelchy sound.
"Ohhh, yuck," Martha grimaced. "And now I look like I dance on tables for a living. God, am I glad Jack's not here."
"You never know, you could start a trend! Ripped, mud-covered Wedding-dress, bodice only, tatters of skirt, green wellingtons and a space-snorkel. Bet you ten quid all the Hath start wearing that next season." The Doctor threw the heavy material into the bog and pulled a face. "Though I'd really prefer it if they didn't."
"I'd prefer it if I wasn't," Martha said pointedly, and he hauled her to her feet again. "So why can't Jack be here anyway?"
"He's been here before." The Doctor slung an arm over her shoulder and they began to pick their way carefully over the swamp. "He owes several million credits."
She snorted. "Gambling?"
He grinned. "Child support."
"No way!" She stared at him wide-eyed, and he nodded solemnly. "Oh, he is toast when I get back to work," she crowed.
"Miss Jones, that's hardly charitable," he protested, but Martha dug him in the ribs.
"You just want to tease him first. Spoilsport."
"Okay, guilty," he laughed. "Aw, you can't blame me, though, can you?"
"You don't work with him," she pointed out.
"Yeah, there is that," he chuckled. "All right, okay, it's all yours. But I want to be there. Gotta see his face when you tell him he swam upstream with the wrong salmon."
"No! Not… fish eggs?" she gaped.
He nodded gleefully. "Why do think it's several million?"
Martha cleared her throat.
Her audience stared at her.
She stared back.
"Say something!" the Doctor hissed at her. Martha cleared her throat again, and wished she wasn't dressed like Wedding Barbarella (Wellingtons Sold Separately).
"I'm going to kill you," she hissed back at him. One of the Hath bubbled at her, and she startled slightly. "Um, him, not you. And not really." She glared at him. "But he'll wish I had," she added darkly.
The Doctor pulled the knot of his tie down a little, and smiled at the Hath. "Hah…"
"Right," she muttered. "Ladies and gentlemen? May I have your attention?" she called, standing a little straighter.
"Did you know, those are very nice knickers," the Doctor remarked. Martha whipped her head around to give him a look that could kill.
"Glad they pass muster," she grated. "Now let me talk to the nice fish-people, okay?"
"Sorry, sorry." He waved his hand dismissively and leaned back against the aquamobile wall, arms folded. "Golly, touchy," he muttered to the Hath standing next to him.
"My name is Doctor Martha Jones, and this," she smacked his shoulder without turning around, "is the Doctor. We're here to help. The Doctor knows a lot about the Rutans, he should be able to assist you with preparing your defense. I am a doctor of medicine, and I can help with any injuries your people have sustained in the fighting."
To the Doctor, it sounded like Martha had just imitated the Flowerpot men for a couple of minutes. He wrinkled his nose. "That's what Hathic sounds like out of water?" he asked himself incredulously. "That is weird." He turned to his neighbour again. "Flobadobble?" he said politely.
The Hath ignored him.
Martha was still speaking. "If you could send your military advisers to speak with us, I can translate for the Doctor. And," she looked down at her bare legs and the dripping white silk taffeta, "I could use a towel."
Five minutes later, the world was a slightly nicer place in which to live. Martha was wrapped in a blanket seemingly woven from dry, fuzzy strands of the algae that floated everywhere on this soggy planet. It was surprisingly warm and soft. She sipped contentedly at the hot, herbal-tasting drink one of the medical officers had handed her, and dreamily repeated the Doctor's words to the Commander, Track, and vice-versa.
"Rutans are excellent swimmers," the Doctor was stating in a firm tone. "No good hiding out in the swamps or evacuating your cities."
Track seemed to frown. "They cannot be very fast," he bubbled.
"Ah, but! Shape-shifter, remember? They're exactly as fast as the species they mimic. Best guess is, they'll be mimicking your lot."
"How can you discern a counterfeit?"
The Doctor held up a finger. "Two things. First, occasionally there's a greenish glow around the face area. And b," he pursed his lips, looked at the ceiling, "I mean, secondly, they'll be stilted, wooden. They'll barely respond to outside stimulus at all."
Track pondered that for a moment. "Do they have any weaknesses?"
"Yup!" The Doctor leaned forward. "They're a gestalt intelligence, and they can manipulate electricity. What does that suggest to you?"
Track raised his scaly pinkish eyebrows. "You're about to tell me, I fear."
The Doctor looked at Martha reproachfully. "Did you throw that last bit in?"
She shrugged. "Don't look at me. Must be your natural charisma."
"Gee, thanks, Miss Jones," he said dryly.
"No charge."
"Anyway," he gave her a mock-glare, "you can take them out the same way they've taken out my ship's translation circuits. Fill the psychic plane with electric charges, set up a bit of static of our own. That'll inhibit their communication and their shape-shifting abilities."
Track spread his hands, shaking his head slowly. "We haven't the technological capability to set up such a device."
"Sure you do! All those cloning extrapolation devices!" The Doctor slapped his thighs and stood up. "Re-route those things, and what do you get?"
Track rolled his eyes. "Amaze me."
The Doctor frowned. "Martha…"
"Not me, I swear!" She held up her hands in surrender. "Don't shoot the messenger!"
The Doctor looked down his thin nose at the commander for a moment. "Cheeky fish," he finally mumbled. "Cheeky… walking fishy person."
"It might help if you got to the point?" Martha said meaningfully.
The Doctor made a 'tch' sound at her, but started to explain anyway, pacing up and down. "Those cloning thingumajiggits, last time, they took my DNA and created a whole other life, yes? One with emotions as highly developed as an adolescent human's, with all the knowledge and responses of a fully-trained warrior."
"Right," Martha nodded, after translating. "You're saying they can send out those pre-programmed responses? Fill the background with… voices that don't exist?"
"Electronic voices, no need for actual clones," he nodded approvingly. "All those fight responses, all those skills. The Hath had those machines too, not just the humans. Just a little jiggery-pokery," he waggled the sonic, his eyebrows raised, "and the Rutans are stuck in their own form, without anyone to talk to."
"Space snot," Martha grinned.
"Space snot!" The Doctor grinned back.
Track tilted his head, his gills flaring. "Will this also reduce their electrical capability?"
"Ah, no." The Doctor looked embarrassed. "Strengthen it, actually. But!" he held out both hands in a pacifying gesture, "they can overload! Just zap a few times with an electronic pulse ray, and they'll have to go home with a terrible headache."
"It will kill them?"
The Doctor's face suddenly hardened. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that," he said in that quiet, slow voice – so unlike his ordinary cheerful prattling. Martha shivered as Track registered the change of mood, and his frame stiffened.
"This is our home, Doctor. We will defend it and people will die," Track bubbled. "War is like that."
"I've got to give them a choice," the Doctor stated. He didn't seem angry or frustrated: It was a simple statement of what the near future held.